


Here at the end of history

by BirchWrites



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, if you can't tell by now i never know how to tag my fics, kind of character study-ish, preparing for battle is something that can actually be so intimate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-11 22:48:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28625199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BirchWrites/pseuds/BirchWrites
Summary: Techno and Phil prepare for battle, just as they've done hundreds of times before.
Relationships: Technoblade & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 110





	Here at the end of history

**Author's Note:**

> I borrowed parts of their stream conversation to write this and technically Dream was there for those parts, but we're just ignoring him because it's what he deserves (/rp). Also, I barely proofread this so if you spot any typos please let me know

Preparing for battle is a rhythm as familiar and subconscious as breathing, by now, and that familiarity is the only thing carrying Techno through the motions. If he stops to think, he’ll freak out about how much he still has left to do, and he absolutely cannot afford that. Not now, when he’s less than an hour away from taking on an entire country single-handedly. 

No, don’t think about that. Focus on the preparations and nothing else. 

Still, it’s hard to focus on a borderline mindless task for very long, and it only takes a few minutes for his mind to start wandering again as he looks around the main room of his cabin. The scene that meets his eyes could just as easily have been a vision straight from the past: snow falling softly outside the window, dye and gunpowder staining his hands from the half-crafted rockets on the table in front of him, neat stacks of arrows and pearls and weapons scattered wherever there’s space, Phil bustling in and out of his view with his arms full of potion supplies as he moves from one brewing stand to another. His sleeves are rolled up and his hair is pulled back into a short, messy ponytail to keep it out of his face while he brews, and his expression is calm and focused despite the stressful situation. 

It’s the way he’s always looked before battle, for as long as Techno has known him. Where the pressure often frazzles Techno, sends him fumbling with what should be easy tasks and stuttering over his words, his friend seems to thrive under it, never losing his easygoing attitude. Just watching him is enough to calm Techno down a little, as though Phil is projecting a little bubble of peace throughout the room. 

“I think that’s enough invis potions,” Phil says, leaning past Techno to line the bottles up next to the pile of finished rockets. There’s an angry red line crossing the inside of his forearm from brushing against a hot brewing stand in his haste, but he doesn’t seem to have noticed. “What else do you need?”

“Uh.” What  _ does _ he need? No more invisibility, Phil’s been brewing those for nearly an hour. Strength and speed, obviously, as many as possible. Regeneration, instant health - he has golden apples and food for that too, but better safe than sorry. Fire resistance? No, there’s no lava in L’Manberg, and his armor can take any fire damage from their weapons. It’d just be a waste of inventory space. Turtle master? No, he needs to be able to keep moving, kite everyone around to drag on the fight. The resistance  _ would _ be useful, though, but is it worth sacrificing the inventory space for the off chance that he’ll use it? There’s too many options, too many possible variables to consider.

Techno goes to swipe a hand through his hair, a nervous habit he’d picked up from Wilbur at some point, but Phil grabs his wrist just in time to stop him from smearing red and black dye across his forehead. “Hey. Take a breath, mate, there’s still plenty of time left. You can think about it for a minute if you need to.”

He’s right, of course, as he usually is. Techno takes a deep breath and tries to corral his rushing thoughts into some kind of order. What’s most important? Phil waits patiently while he thinks, still holding Techno’s wrist in a loose grip. Techno could easily break free from the restraint if he wanted to, which is exactly why he lets it be. 

“Strength and speed,” he decides after a moment. “As long-lasting as possible, don’t worry about making them strong.”

“Any preference for which I should brew first?” 

“Uh, both? Just, lots of both.” He trusts Phil to know the best way to get it done; this is far from the first time they’ve prepared for a battle together. 

“Alright, I can do that. Do you have more water bottles?”

Techno stands up from his chair, and Phil releases his wrist so that he can go dig through his chests. He doesn’t have any more water bottles, it turns out, but he does have plenty of empty ones. 

“Nope. I’ll go fill up some more.”

Grabbing as many bottles as he can carry, Techno shoulders his way out the door and crosses the short distance to the nearby pond. It’s frozen over again, but a few sharp kicks are enough to break through the thin crust of ice. He kneels down and gets started on filling up the bottles, welcoming the cold bite of the water as he dunks his hand in and the way it temporarily shocks his brain back to clarity. 

Once all the bottles are full, he takes a moment to sit back on his heels, savoring the feeling of the wind cutting through the warmth of his cloak and the snow slowly melting into his pants where he’s been kneeling. He’s never liked the cold very much, but he’d chosen to settle down in the tundra anyway, as a reminder of his old Empire. Things had been easier then, when dying was a minor inconvenience and going to war was almost a game; he’d thought, naively, that he could recapture a little of that simplicity by moving out here. 

It didn’t work out like that, of course; the only thing he got when he moved to the tundra was the annoyance of having to shovel snow off his porch every third night. 

Techno heaves out a sigh as he stands, forming a small cloud that trails up toward the sky, and gathers up the filled water bottles to bring them back to the cabin. He pauses on his porch to kick his boots against the edge of the top step, knocking off clumps of packed down snow. Then he walks the two steps to the front door and kicks that as well, because he’s just realized that between all the water bottles he has no hands left to open it. 

A few seconds pass before Phil opens the door, allowing Techno back into the warm cabin. He leaves the water bottles on top of the potion supplies chest and goes back to the table where he was crafting fireworks, but doesn’t sit down yet. 

Instead, he leans his hip against the table and folds his arms, watching his friend lean over a brewing stand. “Aren’t you tired, Phil?” 

He’d asked almost the same thing when Phil first arrived in this world, after the ash had settled and he’d washed his son’s blood off his sword.  _ Aren’t you tired of being nice?  _ Then, Phil had laughed, halfway hysterical and choked with lingering tears, because they both know that Phil may be kind but he has never really been  _ nice.  _

Now, he just pauses where he has been about to add more netherwart to the potions, and doesn’t turn around to meet Techno’s eyes. “Does it matter if I am?”

“It matters to me. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, you know. This isn’t your fight.” 

“It  _ is.”  _ Phil spins to face Techno, and there’s a look in his eyes like a wounded animal, ready to lash out and draw blood. “It  _ became  _ my fight when I was summoned here to kill my son!”

To this day, Techno isn’t sure who called Phil to this world for the final battle. It certainly wasn’t him; he’d been very happy to have his closest friend far, far away from all the madness. Tommy is a possibility, but not a likely one, since the kid’s got an independent streak a mile wide and refuses to ask for help even if he’s literally dying. He has a sneaking suspicion it might have been Wilbur, but if it was there’s no way to find out. Ghostbur claims to remember nothing from the days leading up to L’Manberg’s recapture and subsequent destruction, and Techno isn’t inclined to push him on that. 

“Alright,” is all he says, because Phil looks like he’s one wrong word away from shattering and that’s neither something they can afford right now nor a situation Techno is in any way equipped to deal with. 

Phil seems to realize that as well, and as Techno watches he takes several deep breaths, wounded expression disappearing back into that familiar pre-battle calm. When he goes back to his brewing, his hands are rock steady. 

“I can be tired when this is all over,” he says. “Until then, we’ve got work to do.”


End file.
